St. Lucie River restoration to help aquatic flora, fishing and flood control

FFWCC official describes the state's efforts to improve water quality flowing into the Indian River Lagoon.

FWC Marine Estuarine Habitat Coordinator Jeff Beal checks one of several fish traps placed in a few inches of brackish water in Miller’s Oxbow, a section of Ten Mile Creek in Fort Pierce recently re-connected to the original estuary.

FWC biologist Jeff Beal and DEP environmental specialist Brian Sharpe examine fish and crustaceans found in a seine net and a fike net in Miller’s Oxbow on Ten Mile Creek in Fort Pierce.

Dozens of fish and crabs are examined after being collected in a seine net pushed down Miller’s Oxbow near Fort Pierce.

ST. LUCIE COUNTY — With its claws raised in protest, the freshwater crayfish objected to being plucked from the water. Viewing the smile upon Jeff Beal’s face, the crayfish undoubtedly mistook the gratification of scientific discovery for that of a man with etouffee on his mind.

This crayfish, however, was far too important to head to any boil. In fact, by wandering into a muddy slough off the tannin-stained waters of the St. Lucie River’s North Fork, the crayfish unwittingly helped validate a project critical to the future health of the estuary in which it lives.

Hydrologic restoration work is partially returning the flow of the St. Lucie River to its original riverbed. In the early 1900s, the section of the river that winds through Port St. Lucie was dug deeper and straighter in order to provide drainage for the uplands for agricultural and urban use.

Biologists with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection have identified 30 locations where connections can be made between the present path of the river and oxbows and wetlands that will ultimately help the watershed.

“We’ve been able to use old surveys and maps that were completed prior to the work in 1920 that channelized the river to determine where the restoration can take place,” said Beal, Marine Habitat Coordinator with the FWC. “In some cases we have to dig out hundreds of feet of the original bed, but in others its just a matter of breaching the spoil bank.”

Beal said the work at Miller’s Oxbow a short distance east of the Selvitz Road bridge over Ten Mile Creek has been successful. In just a few weeks, the shallow, short waterway showed how valuable it will be.

“Each one of these is unique in some sense,” Beal said. “Within a few weeks we’ve already seen a diversity change and an abundance change for the better.”

Reconnecting oxbows in the 16-mile long aquatic preserve helps the estuary and the adjacent Indian River Lagoon in several ways, Beal said.

“This increases the amount of water storage which is always important when we receive large rain events. It helps with the filtration of that water coming off the land as the plants we plant there will help in the uptake of nutrients and pollutants. And, it helps with habitat utilization by economically important aquatic organisms,” Beal said.

Some of those pollutants identified in soil surveys of the river bank include long ago-banned insecticides such as DDT, Dieldrin and Aldrin, as well as chemicals presently in use such as heavy metals like copper sulfate and herbicides like Atrazine.

Blue crabs, snook, species of drum — such as spots, croakers and redfish — and small fish that serve as food sources for game fish all will benefit from this project. Beal said native plants such as pop ash, water hickory, sabal palm and cypress help in the filtration of the water. Jute netting and smartweed are used to help battle erosion of the banks. Smartweed’s other function, however, serves as a nursery for opossum pipefish, a tiny unique fish that spends its adult life in the upper reaches of the St. Lucie River estuary and its juvenile life in sargassum weed in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.